Smart Infrastructure ME

His Excellency Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), announced that DEWA has installed 595,755 smart water meters across Dubai. This is 80.6% of the total number of water meters in the Emirate, with all water meters in Dubai to become smart meters by the end of next year. The announcement was made at the 20th Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition (WETEX 2018), which DEWA is organizing at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre from 23-25 October 2018.

"In all our projects and initiatives, we work in line with the vision and directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, to provide state-of-the-art infrastructure and to manage all the Emirate's facilities and services through smart and connected systems", said Al Tayer.

"Our projects are also aligned with the Dubai Plan 2021, which aims to make Dubai a smart, integrated and connected city. We are working to make DEWA the world's first digital utility to use autonomous systems for renewable energy and storage, while expanding our use of Artificial Intelligence and digital services. The 'Smart Applications via Smart Grids and Meters' is one of the initiatives DEWA launched to support the Smart Dubai initiative to make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world. In addition to their role in the smart transformation, operational efficiency and reducing water losses, Smart Meters provide many benefits to customers and help them monitor their consumption accurately and instantaneously, anytime, anywhere. This contributes to promoting the responsible use and sustainability of resources," he added.

Abdullah Obaidullah, Executive Vice President of Water and Civil at DEWA, noted that DEWA has an advanced infrastructure for smart water meters that has so far identified 20,000 water leakage cases, 4,700 faults, and 1,400 extra-load cases. This resulted in total savings of about AED 52.6 million.

The 'High Water Usage Alert', under DEWA's Green Dubai, helps customers discover possible leaks in their water connections, after the meter. The system sends instant notifications to the customer if there is any unusual increase in consumption, to check the internal connections and repair any leaks. This contributes to reducing incurred costs by limiting water wastage.

DEWA won the 'Smart Water Company Award of the Year' at the Global Water Summit 2018 that took place recently in Paris, France. This was in recognition of DEWA's efforts in implementing one of the largest smart water meter infrastructure projects in the world, allowing it to increase availability of meter readings to 99.9%.

To mark the World Energy Day, DEWA launched 'My Sustainable Living' program, which enables residential customers to compare their monthly electricity and water usage with the average usage of similar homes. This enables customers to take informed decisions based on current data and information to compare their monthly electricity and water consumption with similar efficient homes. The program encourages a healthy competition among customers to reduce consumption and reduce their carbon footprint.

A total of 343,000 customers have been enrolled in the first phase of the program. DEWA aims to enroll all residential customers after completing the installation of the smart meters, which provides a host of advanced features. DEWA is highlighting the program's features and benefits at its Conservation Stand at WETEX 2018.